


Trying Something Different

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:28:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19783267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So instead of it being the fun loving older brother that saves the somewhat-skittish four-year-old sister and ends up drowning in the process and being reborn as a winter spirit with no memories, it’s the other way around. (As in, skittish-older-sister saves reckless-four-year-old-brother and drowns in the process becomes reborn etc etc)I want to see people as creative with this prompt as they can. How does this change things as they happen in the movie?+10 I’m okay with any names for Jack Frost’s sister but if you use Emma you are officially obligated to make X-mens references."So we’ve got a bit of a new beginning, and a new ending. Jackie Frost (look, the name Jack Frost is what people know, I didn’t want to mess with it. The personality change still happens) comes up with a different solution for dealing with Pitch at the end of the movie.





	Trying Something Different

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 4/9/2016.

“Jackie Frost,” North says with some surprise, looking at the figure of the girl suspended above the crystal.  
  
“Frost?” Bunny sounds equally baffled. “Who’s even seen her? Not believer-wise, I mean, but, well, ever. Isn’t she just another local winter spirit? Course, if she is more than a winter spirit, I’m not too sure I like the idea of her joining up with us. I’ve had plenty of run-ins with a lingering American winter, and I can’t say I enjoyed it too much. If a mind on our level was responsible for all that, not someone who just follows natural cycles, I’ve got quite a few things to say to her.”  
  
“As long as she helps protect the children, right?” Tooth asks. “A local winter spirit being recruited into the Guardians isn’t the strangest thing that could happen.”  
  
“True, Toothy, but we have all seen some very strange things,” North says. “This is…this is odd. None of us were spirits before we were chosen, after all.” He turns to Sandy. “What do you think? You must have seen her sometime, you see everybody.”  
  
Sandy nods. He’s seen her. She loves dreams, and she’s lonely, but she’s also very wary. Easily startled.  
  
“Well, that sounds exactly like the kind of person we need when we’re facing the embodiment of fear,” Bunny says, rolling his eyes. “Are we sure Manny’s showing her to us because he wants her to be a Guardian?”  
  
“We all know there is nothing else this could mean,” North says. “Jackie Frost will be a Guardian.”  
  


* * *

  
  
And though it takes a while, North turns out to be right.   
  
Jackie has helped bring back the children’s belief, Sandy has slammed Pitch into a snowdrift, and everything seems like it’s really, truly going to be all right. But then Pitch manages to get up—and Jackie wonders about that, because she’s pretty sure that if Sandy wanted, he could have put Pitch out of commission for a good long while. Regardless, Pitch is up, walking, and yelling at the children having a snowball fight. One of them walks through him and for a moment he stops, appalled, and looks around at the Guardians with an expression of horror.  
  
He bolts, and they follow, until they finally surround him on a solidly-frozen pond.  
  
Jackie thinks back to her last human memory. She had been scared, then. Scared for herself and scared for her brother, who hadn’t even noticed the ice cracking under his feet. But it hadn’t been only fear she felt. If it had been only fear, she wouldn’t have been able to move to hook Emmett with her crook and send him back towards shore. She wouldn’t have been able to feel relief even as she knew her momentum carried her towards the ice that had just proved it couldn’t hold a four-year-old. She had been brave with her fear, and she had been selfless towards an innocent, and she understood that meant that sometimes you had to act without knowing every consequence, because doing nothing would definitely be worse.  
  
Pitch runs into North and falls down. As he scrambles, Jackie freezes his hands and feet to the pond. “Hold still,” she says. “You’re not going anywhere.”  
  
Pitch struggles, and the other Guardians look at Jackie, impressed, when the ice holds. They raise their own weapons, but Jackie raises her hand. “Like I said,” she points out, “he’s not going anywhere.” When she looks around, she’s relieved to see that they’re relaxing a little, but she sees the Nightmares ringing the pond and frowns. “Sandy,” she says, “if it’s possible—if it’s safe—could you go and get rid of them? I don’t want them messing anything up.”  
  
Sandy tilts his head at her curiously, but nods. Soon enough, the nightmares are flying away as a number of golden creatures—they don’t attack Sandy, and that’s interesting to Jackie; she had begun to think that they weren’t really under Pitch’s control, but now that he’s on ice they don’t show any initiative at all. That’s another relief. Though she’s a little less worried about Sandy since he’s proved he can come back from the dead, she’d much rather have had him say no to her request than to put himself in danger again.  
  
“What are you going to do with Pitch?” Bunny asks. “We can’t just leave him stuck to the lake, though I can understand why you might want to.”  
  
Jackie laughs a little nervously and shakes her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with Pitch, but I do know that I’m not going to do it alone.”  
  
North beams at her, and she knows he thinks this is about being a Guardian finally, and while it is, partly, it’s also about something she just thought of and may not be the best solution. But it’s better than leaving Pitch stuck to the lake, and that makes it worth trying.  
  
“All right,” she says. “Pitch doesn’t want to be alone. He told me in Antarctica, and I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth. Because that would be the result of you winning, wouldn’t it, Pitch?” She turns to him.  
  
“What are you doing?” he asks. He goes still and tense, his expression uncertain. “Are you trying to mock me? It’s not a very impressive punishment, I have to say—”  
  
“No, that’s not what I’m doing,” Jackie says. “But, anyway. No longer being alone. That’s what happens when you’re believed in. No one walks through you. So that’s one of the main drives behind what Pitch was doing. But I also think that Pitch _shouldn’t_ be alone. I’ve been afraid of a lot of things, both while I was a human and after. I’ve seen utter fearlessness go wrong really quickly. The thing about fear, I think, is that whether it’s good or bad depends on everything else around it. So, Pitch doesn’t want to be alone, and I don’t think he should be. And, you know, even if you don’t like that idea, we’ve already left him alone once and that started all this. So we’ve got to try something different.”  
  
“What!” Pitch starts struggling again. “You can’t rehabilitate me! You can’t make me play nice! I’m the boogeyman!”  
  
“Well, he doesn’t seem too happy about the idea,” Tooth says. “So I’m more inclined to it than maybe I would be its own merit.”  
  
“I think there’s a lot to be said for not letting him out of our sight for a while, whether it does him any good or not,” Bunny says.  
  
Sandy, back from dissolving the nightmares, looks thoughtful, and gives Jackie a little thumbs up.  
  
“It will be a challenge,” North says, then claps a hand on Jackie’s shoulder. “Good! The more difficult the better! I will not back down.” He smiles at her, and continues more softly. “But that is part of your center, is it not?”  
  
She smiles back up at North and nods a little, then turns to look at the still-complaining Pitch. “I just hope it hasn’t led me somewhere bad.”  
  
“You are a Guardian now,” North says. “I am sure things will work out.” He shrugs. “They might just be, ah, interesting, for quite some time.”


End file.
